Smallscreen News

Kirkman and Darabont's Walking Dead finds life on AMC

By April MacIntyre Mar 29, 2010, 23:05 GMT

AMC has resurrected the long in development "The Walking Dead" for the smallscreen.

Variety reports that AMC has officially ordered six episodes for Frank Darabont's adaptation of the Image Comics survival horror series.

Creator Robert Kirkman is executive producing with Darabont, Gale Anne Hurd of Valhalla Motion Pictures, David Alpert of Circle of Confusion and Charles Eglee (Dexter).

AMC will premiere the limited series in October, "dovetailing with Halloween and AMC's annual 'Fearfest' two-week marathon of horror and thriller pics."

"[Darabont has] taken the baseline roadmap of the underlying material and just blew it out to the next level," announced Joel Stillerman, AMC's senior vice president of original programming. "There's stuff in there that will make the people who love the comics very happy and some surprises in there as well."

The story centers on Rick Grimes, a police officer, who becomes the leader of a group that has survived the recent zombie outbreak.

The casting for Grimes has not yet been announced.

Jon Bernthal of "The Pacific" has been cast in the key role of Shane, Rick's partner on the police force and the leader of the survivors until Rick joins the group.